Pacific Fruit Fly Project

Pacifly is the Pacific 's fruit fly web page which contains information about economic and non economic species of fruit flies in all the Pacific Island Countries and Territorries. Fruitflies are serious pests throughout tropical and sub tropical countries. They constitute of one of the worlds major insect pest in fresh fruits and fleshy vegetables. In every PICT, there is at least one damaging endemic fruit fly species present. Fruitflies cause direct losses to fruit production and in instances where exotic species became established in a country, very expensive eradication programes had to be carried out. The Pacifly aims to provide detailed information of everything related to Fruit flies.

American Samoa is a 200 km² U.S. dependency made up of four islands. Population was 63000 in 1999. Fruit fly surveillance in American Samoa was first initiated in 1985, with the assistance from University of Hawaii, but discontinued in 1986. Four species were detected during that period. Short term snap shot trapping in July, 1996 confirmed that the same four species were still present. With the assistance from the Project on Regional Management of Fruit Flies in the Pacific, quarantine surveillance has resumed by setting up permanent trapping sites on the three islands in July, 1998. Fruit fly project activities are jointly executed by the American Samoa Department of Agriculture (Ms. Elisapeta Sualevai) and the American Samoa Community College Land Grant Program (Mr. Lloyd Ali). Trapped fly samples and sampled fruits collected during host fruit surveys are processed and stored in the Land Grant Program entomology laboratory.

STATUS OF QUARANTINE SURVEILLANCE (as of October, 2007):There are 8 trapping sites, each with one Cue-lure and one methyl eugenol trap, all on Tutuila island. Regularly sampled fruits for research and quarantine surveillance are avocado, banana, breadfruit, guava, mango, papaya, and also noni (Morinda citrifolia). All trapping and host fruit survey data are compiled on Excel spreadsheets. There are fruit fly posters at the airport and the wharf, as well as quarantine bins at the airport. A quarantine awareness program is being developed as television and radio shows and presentation for farmers and students at College of Micronesia.